Amber color on pistils...need help on when to harvest

Il give it another week or two cause the lower part of the branch still has white pistils showing

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Tom is right on and i agree. you don’t want to wate to long.
In the end it’s all up to the grower in what type of high he or she wants . But ya I shoot for 50/50

B Safe
Will

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So I should start flushing my plants this week ??

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Yes I wood if you are going to harvest soon

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Sure but make sure they are 50/50 or close to it.
Keep us posted and best of luck.

B Safe
Will

If you are trying to judge with the pistil “hairs” colors alone, you might want to wait until nearly 100% of the pistils are amber or orange-ish, or brown-ish. This indicates the “buds” are done, and with no new “bright light color” hairs(pistils) showing up, this usually is indicative that the new pistilate/calyx (“buds”) has come to a crawl or complete stop. But by waiting this late you have a higher chance of getting the “couch lock” with a lot of strains, and even some self pollination from latent late flowering hermaphroditism, which is actually quite common in many strains. The only way to know for sure is watching the trichomes, get a jeweler’s loupe, I like at least 60 times magnification.

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I think this is the hardest part for amateur growers, this is my first successful grow and I have been wanting to harvest my plants for about a week now, I keep waiting for more hairs to turn amber, but I have been looking under a jewelers loop and I THINK all my resin sacks are now cloudy/milky, so it may be time.

Wait till you see 50 or 70% Amber you’ll be glad you did…
I had to wait 3 more weeks but knw I have $20. Gram weed.

Will

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You’re referring to 50-70% amber “hairs”, not amber resin sacks, right?

MacG

I’m sorry Tony I should have been more clear on that.
No I was talking about the “Trichrons” you can see them with a
Microscope say 60x100 they will be either clear, milky or turning Amber.
I shoot for 50 to 70% Amber

Hope this helps

B Safe
Will

Oh, I understand now. I’m having an issue with cutworms, and was thinking about harvesting soon because I keep picking these damn things off every day. The trichrons are milky and not amber yet, but most ‘hairs’ are Amber…

It sounds like you are getting close to being ready for harvest.

I know it won’t get to you in time for this harvest, but it might help in the future –

~MacG

I try to get people to not describe the hairs as amber.

Amber denotes translucent, like “oral amber” mouth wash, or amber resin from trees, something you can still kind of see through.

The pistils, also known as hairs, might be kind of translucent when fresh, but when they become orange-ish or brown, they are not translucent at all, and so I wouldn’t describe them as amber. And even though dry and kind of brown-ish, the pistils, also known as hairs, can have some color, sometimes orange, yellow, red or purple-ish. But the trichomes, also known as resin glands or crystals are always clear to milky white in the beginning, and then they turn amber and with some other colors also represented in some strains as well.

Just an FYI to try and keep thing clear.

happy growing,

MacG

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Yeah, as a first time grower on first grow, I am at a danger point, where the hairs have already started turning brown, but I still see some white hairs, and I did just get a couple magnifyers, but my problem was I thought that Oct 15 was my two months by then, and not now, and I worry that maybe some buds are still growing but maybe the top ones are the ones either maxed out or getting maxed out. I mean, a crazy idea occurred to me, like others probably thought of , that of cutting off seemingly mature buds and branches at top and leaving lower ones to continue to mature now that they get more light. Of course, for me, I just gave regular bloom nutrients and next week will be bloom booster only for the last two weeks, but I can full well see where this can be a problem. I have some acquaintances who just love to get couches, well, actually, they are used to cannabis so much that they have built up a tolerance, as for myself, they had gotten some home grown cannabis from one of their friends who said something didn’t turn out right, and I guess when I smoked it and started having a psychadelic experience and couched, I guess it was “couchworthy”, guess that was the problem, too strong.

If you want your weed to be less potent, you get a less potent strain. A fully grown ripe bud, assuming all things being equal and it got enough nutrients while it was growing, say 90% of its potency is from genetics, its heritage, its strain, the extra 10% might be coaxed out with extra potassium during bloom and other helpful grow factors like good maximum light, etc.

The hairs might need to be 100% brown/orange (I don’t like describing the hairs as amber, I think it further confuses people) to get the max out of your plant by weight. Not necessarily potency. If there are still white hairs showing up that means more new calyxes are growing which means your bud is getting bigger.

The only way to judge potency and the type of high is to look into the crystals also known as resin glands or trichomes. You probably need at least 60x magnification to see into them clearly. They start out perfectly clear, like crystal globes. Then they become milky and not so clear any more. Ideally when 100% are milky inside the crystal globe is when they are at maximum potency. Then the milkiness will turn to a golden or amber translucent looking trichome globe. It is when some of these are turning amber, not the more obvious hairs, that can cause couch-lock. Couch-lock is not necessarily describing the strength or potency, and not so much a psychedelic experience but the relaxing sedative like effects that make you want to sit in the couch and do nothing.

And yes, in some cases you can cut the top, more ripe buds, off first and let some of the lower ones get more light and catch up a little, it is not the best way, but it can work.

~MacG

Yeah, I understand more fully now, I need to watch them trichomes closely with my 60x magnifier, and not worry so much bout the “hairs”. I mean, I will be happy to even have a smaller amount of useable pain relief medicine out of this first grow, I mean, I am already looking into what I want to make into some edibles.

That couch lock I have had, well, I am just joking bout the psychadelic experience, I mean, it was some strong stuff they had, but I had days of great pain relief afterwards, that is for sure, errr, my problem was “socially using too much at one time”, I mean, I was lucky they didn’t have to load me up in my wheelbarrow and wheel my home, …I’d like to grow stuff with a little less thc production, so I will be using my 60x to 100X magnifier often. Hey, I bought a 160x to 200x magnifier out of china, still on the way though, but wow, those things are small, not like the larger 30x magnifier I bought also, since the 30x uses AA batteries and doubles as a flashlight and is large, where the others are small and use button batteries.

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The milky white is fresh THC(a), THC(a) alone is not what makes it relaxing or sedative. The decomposing THC(a), as evident by the yellowing or amber coloring to the milky trichomes is what makes it more sedative, Decomposing degraded THC(a) is what contributes to the relaxing sedative effect. Some people do say this increases the pain killing and muscle relaxing effects. THC(a) becomes THC and CBN when THC(a) is exposed to light, oxygen and heat. Most of THC(a) is directly converted to THC when heat, especially extreme heat is applied such as in smoking or cooking. The process of turning THC(a) into THC is called decarboxylation. THC and THC(v) are the more psychoactive canabinoids in cannabis. CBN and CBD are considered more relaxing or sedating.

Here is a pie chart listing the numerous forms of canabinoids in cannabis and what they do:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/leafly/content/cannabinoids-101-what-makes-cannabis-medicine/PLUe6NdETsirqg7Y9Hkf_Cannabinoid-Wheel-(Final)---English.jpg

Happy growing,

~MacG

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What kind of edibles did you end up making?

Well, I am gonna have to put some work into figuring out how to properly measure how much cannabis I put in food form, cause I made some banana nut bread with laced oil and butter, and I get all tired and groggy, …too tired, high and groggy.
But nothing is better than experimenting and screwing up witgh cannabis that I have alot of. I seem to have the need once or twice a week, …and I need to make something else with “less”. In fact, I pulled the classic mistake one evening, the banana bread was so good, errrrr, well, I consumed have the loaf with coffee, …and I awoke several hours later running for the bathroom needing to expel all that coffee.

I have some brownie mix, so tomorrow I will make the classic “pot brownie”, problem is I need to make some more canna oil or butter, I mean, it takes so long to supposedly be just right.

My first grow of wgiute white widow went fairly okay, several plants had trichomes turning amber I didn’t realize, several others were just right and will be as normal for white widow. Several died in the wool pot smokers approved my message, …errrrr, I mean, they liked the quality of the bud, thank god.

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